SF Bay Area Pagan Pride Day: Speakers

M. Macha NightMare, long active in the Reclaiming Collective in the San Francisco Bay Area, is co-creator, with Starhawk, of The Pagan Book of Living and Dying and author of Witchcraft and the Web: Weaving Pagan Traditions Online, ECW Press, Montreal. She has been active in the Covenant of the Goddess (CoG) at all levels since 1981, and is a ritualist and presenter at festivals, stores, colleges, radio and TV throughout the U.S. Her work has appeared in Reclaiming Quarterly, PanGaia, Green Egg, The Pomegranate, Hole in the Stone, and other publications.

Frew is an Elder in both the NROOGD and Gardnerian traditions of modern Wicca, and is High Priest of Coven Trismegiston in Berkeley CA. He has lectured and written extensively on Craft history, traveling around the world to research sites significant to the origins of modern Wicca and study the texts recording our history. An interview with him on the subject appears in the recent book "Modern Pagans".

Frew has been very active in interfaith work on behalf of the Craft for over 17 years and is the National Interfaith Representative for the Covenant of the Goddess (the largest Wiccan religious organization on Earth). He has served seven terms on CoG's Board of Directors, including two as President. He represented CoG at both Parliaments of the World's Religions ('93 Chicago, '99 Cape Town) and is a member of the Parliament Assembly (other members include the Pope and the Dalai Lama). Frew was recently elected to serve on the Global Council of the United Religions Initiative (the world's largest interfaith networking organization), where he works to increase communication and cooperation between the many Pagan religions that make up 1/4 of the world's population.

Sam Webster, M. Div., Mage, trained at Meadville/Lombard Theological School at the University of Chicago and Starr King School for the Ministry at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He is an Adept of the Golden Dawn and a sovereign of the Chthonic-Ouranian OTO, as well as an initiate of Wiccan, Buddhist and Hindu lines. He directs Academy Arkadia, a school of the Pagan Magickal arts, and serves the local Pagan community principally as a priest of Hermes.

Daniel Pharr is a writer, firewalking instructor and Pagan living in the Pacific Northwest. He is an avid practitioner of Eastern and Western spirituality, divination and energy work

Michael Sanborn is a ceremonial magician, 19 year member of the OTO, and peripatetic surrealist. He was one of the founding members of Kali Lodge in New Orleans, Louisiana, the first curriculum director of the Oz Institute in Oakland, California, and the originator of "The Beast Bay" (a Thelemic webzine), under the pen name Xnoubis. His current interests include the integration of Hermeticism with Systems Theory, the development of a global Open Society, and Enochian Disco.

Rituals can be planned, or can be simple events that happen in your everyday. Learn to set vibration in harmony with yourself and your goals, so that any moment can be sacred ceremony.
Experience in this workshop: Opening your feeling sense to guide you toward sanctuary. Bringing yourself and your rituals into the power of the present. Consciously set vibration for groups and yourself.
Linda Cipolla is a trained intuitive, healer and licensed Interfaith Minister who has been creating sacred space for ritual and communication for over ten years. Using a mix of Inner Goddess, Shamanism and Mystical Christian traditions, she has led spiritual and Goddess pilgrimages, celebrated rites of passage, performed house healings and wedding ceremonies. She holds a practice as a Spiritual Teacher and Intuitive Coach.

The Grok Wisdom Counsel cuts through the crap through the use of inner silence and interpersonal respect. It is useful for small groups of two through seven or eight. I have personally used this methodology to explore topics at the deepest levels of wisdom, to prepare for doing magick, and to clarify a group's mission statement. I've also used it to resolve conflicts with both couples and groups. I've used it to define my relationships with wife, my lover, and my wife's lover, to assist a dying cancer victim in creating an empowered meaning for herself, and personally to forge a path through difficult times. This is a versatile technique that will empower both you and everyone around you.

Ritual Theater's mission is to create, perform and preserve new and old theater, ritual, and ritual-theater. We develop new material from our research into the deep well of mythology, history, anthropology, theology, and sociology. By exploring and re-enacting stories that all cultures share, as well as stories that are unique to a culture, class, or religion, we find clues to questions of today's generation and tomorrow's needs. Stretching the boundaries of imagination as well as spirit through entertainment, education and experience, we hope to add a little bit of beauty to the world left to our children and their friends, real or imagined.

"The Painted Fan is a dance group grounded in the Feri Tradition and in American Tribal Style Belly Dance. Using improvisation as well as traditional middle eastern movements, we seek to honor and explore the sacred. Approaching dance as ritual and sacred myth telling, we create an exciting and entrancing experience."

Stinging Nettle Longsword (the Nettles) is a San Francisco Bay Area team that performs English longsword dances. In keeping with the great Bay Area tradition of being non-traditional, we enjoy putting our own spin on existing dances or creating entirely new dances of our own. We're an all-woman team dancer-wise, but our main muso is a guy. We are a sexually eclectic team, with members ranging from straight to bi to gay and from vanilla (well, French vanilla) to kinky. We don't have a squire or other leader-type person; we make decisions by informal consensus (no, we're not an anarcho-syndicalist collective!). If you want to join our team, have us perform at an event, or just want more info about us, please see our Website at www.feastofweeds.com/nettles